On Morricone Youth this weekend, host Devon E. Levins welcomes soundtrack composer, songwriter and producer Dan Romer for an exclusive interview and in-depth listen to his recent score for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Listen live Sun 2-4p ET or to the archive HERE!
Beasts of the Southern Wild earned the Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic) at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and earned director/co-composer Benh Zeitlin the Caméra D’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) exists on the brink of orphanhood, in a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural order is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father, Wink (Dwight Henry), and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions.
The soundtrack, heralded “a treasure” by Wall Street Journal, the “year’s best score” by Vulture.com and “major contender for soundtrack of the year” by Indiewire.com/ThePlaylist, was composed by Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin and is currently available via iTunes with a CD release planned for later this year. Together Romer and Zeitlin created what Variety calls a “resonant score” that “lends real dignity to her [Hushpuppy’s] oddysey.” “The score was built from the idea that the Bathtub [the fictional setting of Beasts] had its own ‘Auld Lang Syne’ or ‘America the Beautiful’ or ‘We Are the Champions,’” said Zeitlin. We needed an anthem to express the ferocious, resilient, triumphant mentality necessary to hold out at the end of the world.” The composers also wanted the film’s score to reflect the point of view of its imaginative young heroine. Zeitlin continues, "When we made the score, we just thought, What is Hushpuppy thinking about this situation? Let's make music that would reflect what she thinks about what's happening," he said. "If we tried to score it from anybody else's point of view other than Hushpuppy's, it fell flat." In addition to the original score, the composers searched for a Cajun band that could evoke the particular sound of the Bathtub, full of both verve and tradition. They found that in the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a Grammy®-nominated local group from Pilette, Louisiana. The legendary band combines the heritage music of their native Southern Louisiana with contemporary twists of rockabilly, punk and swing.
Working towards a shared vision is not new to Zeitlin and Romer, who have a history of collaboration. Queens-born and raised Zeitlin was working on his short film Egg when he first met Romer, who engineered the film score for the short. The next year the two collaborated to co-compose the music for Ray Tintori’s award winning short Death to the Tin Man. The two also wrote the score for Zeitlin’s short epic Glory at Sea. “I think Benh intentionally leaves parts of the film for music to fill in,” described Romer. “And that’s a great way to work – to think that a piece of art isn’t complete until every single creative part is there. If the film made sense without the music, then the music would be superfluous.”
In his Brooklyn studio, Dan Romer has produced albums for an array of artists such as Ingrid Michaelson, Jenny Owen Youngs, Ian Axel, He Is We, April Smith, Lelia Broussard, Cara Salimando and Jukebox The Ghost. Listen live starting at 2pm ET on Sunday through this link or via the free EVR Mobile App for iPhone and Droid.
Beasts of the Southern Wild earned the Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic) at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and earned director/co-composer Benh Zeitlin the Caméra D’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) exists on the brink of orphanhood, in a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural order is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father, Wink (Dwight Henry), and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions.
The soundtrack, heralded “a treasure” by Wall Street Journal, the “year’s best score” by Vulture.com and “major contender for soundtrack of the year” by Indiewire.com/ThePlaylist, was composed by Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin and is currently available via iTunes with a CD release planned for later this year. Together Romer and Zeitlin created what Variety calls a “resonant score” that “lends real dignity to her [Hushpuppy’s] oddysey.” “The score was built from the idea that the Bathtub [the fictional setting of Beasts] had its own ‘Auld Lang Syne’ or ‘America the Beautiful’ or ‘We Are the Champions,’” said Zeitlin. We needed an anthem to express the ferocious, resilient, triumphant mentality necessary to hold out at the end of the world.” The composers also wanted the film’s score to reflect the point of view of its imaginative young heroine. Zeitlin continues, "When we made the score, we just thought, What is Hushpuppy thinking about this situation? Let's make music that would reflect what she thinks about what's happening," he said. "If we tried to score it from anybody else's point of view other than Hushpuppy's, it fell flat." In addition to the original score, the composers searched for a Cajun band that could evoke the particular sound of the Bathtub, full of both verve and tradition. They found that in the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a Grammy®-nominated local group from Pilette, Louisiana. The legendary band combines the heritage music of their native Southern Louisiana with contemporary twists of rockabilly, punk and swing.
Working towards a shared vision is not new to Zeitlin and Romer, who have a history of collaboration. Queens-born and raised Zeitlin was working on his short film Egg when he first met Romer, who engineered the film score for the short. The next year the two collaborated to co-compose the music for Ray Tintori’s award winning short Death to the Tin Man. The two also wrote the score for Zeitlin’s short epic Glory at Sea. “I think Benh intentionally leaves parts of the film for music to fill in,” described Romer. “And that’s a great way to work – to think that a piece of art isn’t complete until every single creative part is there. If the film made sense without the music, then the music would be superfluous.”
In his Brooklyn studio, Dan Romer has produced albums for an array of artists such as Ingrid Michaelson, Jenny Owen Youngs, Ian Axel, He Is We, April Smith, Lelia Broussard, Cara Salimando and Jukebox The Ghost. Listen live starting at 2pm ET on Sunday through this link or via the free EVR Mobile App for iPhone and Droid.
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